Today a small contingent of faithful Scientologists came out to Bob Minton’s
home in New Hampshire to picket. I say “small,” as there were only two people
there — the Boston DSA Maureen O’Keefe and Joe Stover, an OT8.

Bob responded by pulling out and setting up ten times as many protest signs in
his yard! Pictures were taken by both sides, and all in all, it was pretty
peaceful, no shouting or anything. After a while, the police came and sent the
Scientologists off, saying they were a road hazard and they did not want them to
become road kill.

I talked to Maureen for a little while, just to let her know my true feelings
about Scientology and why I oppose it. She made an interesting assumption about
me which I hope I cleared up for her. She said to me, “You hate Scientology,
don’t you?”

I told her I don’t hate anything. I just feel sorry for the fact that she does
not know what she is really doing or what she is trying to support. Here it is
Labor Day weekend, and she and another OT 8 are out in the hot sun with pitiful
signs protesting instead of enjoying the day with their families. At this point
we engaged in conversation concerning just how Scientology denigrates and break
down the most basic human structure in our society, which is the family..

We talked about specifics. Now, I could go on and on about others having their
families destroyed by Scientology, but I talked to her about my experience
specifically. We talked about how the Sea Org makes its members have enforced
abortions. In fact I now recall a Flag Order which forbids Sea Org members to
have children. In order to have a child in the Sea Org you have to submit
something called a “CSW” which means completed staff work. You have to say how
having a child will increase Sea Org productivity and forward the goals of the
group. During my time as a Senior Executive in RTC, no one — and I mean no one,
including my own wife, who was one of the women at the secret management base in
Gilman Hot Springs who was forced to have an abortion – was allowed to have
children as it was not the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.
The reason for denial was purely financial. Kids cost money.

Standard procedure for any women who got pregnant was for the pregnant women to
read a PR (public relations) pack and/or get a briefing from the Port Captain
(PR post in the Sea Org) on how to explain to the local welfare board how you
were an adult indigent and had to have an abortion and the state needed to pay
for it. My wife and I went through this nightmare when she became pregnant.
Neither one of us wanted the abortion and it caused us much grief. However she
was convinced to have one anyway, and nothing I said or did would stop her. I
even told her we could both leave the Sea Org, but she didn’t want to. All I
could do at that point was to support her in her decision and I went to the
abortion clinic with her.

Going to an abortion clinic was a horrifying experience in the dark side of
human nature. We sat there and saw the misery of others who were there. To be
honest, it all felt unreal. It is dangerous to have an abortion, because in some
cases the mother can no longer carry a child to full term afterwards.

To make a long story short, my wife and I decided to have children once we got
out of the Sea Org. She was five months pregnant and we went to have an
ultrasound done. We discovered that the unborn child was horribly deformed and
had to be aborted. In the end I held the deformed fetus in my arms after it was
born dead. The face was my face. I loved the child and was very upset and hurt
by the experience. This experience devastated both of us and effectively
destroyed our marriage. We are divorced now.

How is it that you can devote your life to an organization, yet have no medical
insurance or any assurance that you will be cared for by the organization? What
kind of crazy fools is the Sea Org creating in this modern world we live in?

No, I don’t hate Scientology. But I sure hate what it does. What kind of coward
would demand the blood of the innocent unborn as a matter of law? L. Ron Hubbard
is the answer, and just like the Nazi soldiers at the death camps, David
Miscavige, Scientology’s new dictator, keeps on pushing the button or giving
the orders to kill. L Ron Hubbard is dead! Why does the slaughter of the
innocent continue?

Prior to my association with Scientology I was blessed with two healthy
children. It is my belief that as a result of Scientology I lost two children.

I plan to make the subject of enforced abortions in Scientology widely known and
well documented.

I told Maureen O’Keefe that I have no hate in my heart for her. She is way low
on the Scientology hierarchy and far from the inner sanctum of her “church,”
Scientology. She does not understand what she is supporting and promoting. I
have an obligation to her and everyone else in Scientology to reveal truth about
Scientology, L Ron Hubbard and the people who are running his organization since
he has died, so that informed decisions can be made concerning what to support.
After that, the burden is on them.

By now everyone should have seen the lengthy message Vaughn posted last night.
For various reasons he did not want to discuss what he has been doing until now,
and I realize this silence has created concern and allowed Scientology to hope
for the worst. But Vaughn is, more than ever, doing what he does best in this
battle with Scientology. He and I are in daily contact, and I suggest that any
hope Scientology may have had that they could drive a wedge between Vaughn and
me is just as futile now as it ever was when we were inside the cult. It will
never happen.

Now it is time to bring everyone up to date on the relentless campaign of
intimidation and harassment to which both Bob Minton and I have been subjected
recently. It is a campaign which has increased dramatically since Jesse Prince
emailed Bob at FACTNet after hearing about the Dateline program and, shortly
thereafter, met with me in Columbus, Ohio. It will become clear as you read this
report that Scientology is terrified of what Jesse’s information is going to do.
So terrified, in fact, that they have literally made death threats against him.
But let me start earlier.

It began on July 7, while I was in Columbus, Ohio, for a meeting with Brian
Haney and Bob. That evening when I checked my email I found that the executive
director of FACTNet had forwarded a message to me that Jesse Prince had sent to
Bob Minton. In the email message Jesse suggested to Bob that he check with
Vaughn and me about who he was, since the three of us had worked together
extensively when we were in Scientology. He included a cell phone number in his
message. I called him immediately and left a message giving him my hotel phone
number.

I had known Jesse since 1976 in Scientology and was thrilled to see that he was
reaching out to re-establish contact. He had been third in command of
Scientology, under David Miscavige and Vicki Aznaran, from 1982 until he was
busted, along with Vicki and many others (including Vaughn), by DM in 1987.
Jesse had always been a kind-hearted person, even when he had every reason to
advance his own position by becoming one of DM’s vicious lieutenants. Jesse
never crossed that threshold. He always remained my friend and someone that I
and others could trust not to sell us out.

I also knew that Jesse would be David Miscavige’s worst nightmare if he decided
to come forward to expose what he knows about Scientology. He was not just in
the inner circle; Jesse was in the innermost inner sanctum, privy to all of the
illegalities, covert operations, destruction of enemies, and degradation of Sea
Org staff – all order by Miscavige. He was also a direct witness to the rift
between LRH, Pat Broeker and DM which began in 1981 and increased as LRH and
Broeker realized with growing alarm that DM was wresting control of Scientology
away from them. I was electrified at the possibility that Jesse and I might
re-connect. The ramifications for the battle being waged to reform Scientology
were staggering. I knew that if Jesse came forward with the information he had,
it would mean the end of DM’s reign of terror. I also knew that Jesse would be
in serious danger as soon as DM found that that he had contacted me. But Jesse
had always been fearless when I knew him. I hoped he would still be that way.

On Wednesday, July 8, Bob left Columbus in the morning and I spent several hours
finishing up some business with Brian. When I got back to my hotel at 3:30 I had
a message from Jesse Prince asking me to call him on his cell phone. When I
heard Jesse’s voice again, after not having seen or heard from him for nine
years, I literally cried with joy. I called him right away and he answered on
the first ring. He was sitting in a bar in downtown Boston with some friends
when I reached him. We were so happy to hear each other’s voices that we
practically shouted at each other, it was such an emotional moment for us. The
idea that we had both survived so much, and that our friendship had survived all
these years and was as strong as ever, was just too much for us. I was the first
friend Jesse had contacted since he had gone into hiding after he left
Scientology and they began coming after him.

Immediately, without even thinking about it, my support for Jesse was
unconditional. Whatever you need to recover, I told him, I’ll help you get it.
This is how I feel about Jesse and every other victim of the unspeakable abuse
and degradation to which DM subjects his subordinates. I experienced the
nightmare myself. I know the horror he survived. Jesse is my friend. He is a
decent, kind-hearted, caring person. He’s no angel and never claimed to be, any
more than I am. But I will help him in any way I can. He knows it, and we trust
each other, and nothing Scientology can do will ever drive a wedge between us.

I arranged for Jesse to fly to Columbus that very night. He didn’t even have
time to go back to his hotel to get his suitcase. Brian and I met him at the
airport and when he walked down that ramp I can’t remember ever being happier to
see anyone than I was to see Jesse that night. We stayed up for hours just
catching up on each other’s experiences. He filled in the missing pieces for me
about the dismal failure of the 1987 attempted coup, when Pat Broeker sent
Vicki Aznaran, Jesse Prince and Spike Bush on a mission to the secret base of
international Scientology management in Gilman Hot Springs to remove Miscavige
from post and take over command of Scientology. I won’t retell the whole story
here because Jesse can do that much better than I, but it answered many
questions that I had had. At the same time, I was able to fill in missing pieces
for Jesse, since I had been in the LRH biography unit in LA under Vaughn and
Broeker at the time, and had therefore been directly and catastrophically
affected by the upheaval caused by their failed coup.

Jesse and I spent all day Thursday together, just catching each other up and
re-establishing our friendship. Jesse told me how difficult it had been for him
to make the transition back to the real world after sixteen years in the bizaare
“through-the-looking-glass” world of the Sea Org. He told me that during the
first five years after he escaped, he felt he had hit rock bottom and it seemed
as if he had suffered just about all the loss possible for him. He said he had
felt as if he had nothing else to lose for a time. He had been forced to declare
bankruptcy in 1994 and start all over again. He said he found that he was so
unsocialized that he literally could not work with other people, because no
matter what he did, he just couldn’t fit in. He said he would experience a
physical revulsion to being around too many people, and sometimes he couldn’t
bear to be around even one other person. To his credit, Jesse started his own
company and was able to pull himself up by his bootstraps and begin the long
journey toward becoming a functioning member of society. By the time he and I
met, Jesse said he felt he was finally gaining some stability personally and
some success in his business. He was coming back to himself, he said, and coming
back to the world, and it was finally OK for him to be doing that.

Jesse told me that for several years after he left, he had avoided any contact
with Scientology or Scientologists to try to separate himself from the deep
deception and delusion that, as far as Jesse was concerned, happens to anyone
who practices and associates with Scientology for any length of time. But at the
end of June, he said, he was in Chicago visiting his family, and his cousin told
him she had seen a program on NBC’s Dateline about a guy named Bob Minton. She
told Jesse that Bob helped people get out of Scientology and exposed the abusive
and deceptive practices of the Scientology cult.

Two weeks later, for the first time ever, Jesse logged onto the Internet. He did
it via a computer at a cyber-cafe in Minneapolis, and he found
alt.religion.scientology. According to Jesse, he could hardly believe what he
was seeing! He had never seen so many people unafraid to stand up and tell the
truth about the misery that families and friends have suffered at the hands of
Scientology. He came across the FACTNet web page and saw something about Vaughn
and me, and that was how it all began. The more we talked, the more Jesse’s
conviction grew that it was time for him to stand up and tell his story and do
everything possible to end the abuse of Scientology. We talked about how
Scientology would go after him, how they would do everything they could to ruin
his life, discredit him, portray him as a criminal, a pervert and worse. He knew
he would be subjecting his own family to harassment and abuse if he took a
public stand against them. And he knew it was very possible he could be in
physical danger. But Jesse’s strength and courage increased before my very eyes.
By Thursday evening, Jesse was committed to exposing the evil of Scientology,
whatever the cost.

Although I didn’t know it until several days later, it was on July 9 that the
Boston Globe published its huge article about Bob’s battle with the Church of
Scientology. It was extremely favorable toward Bob, and extremely critical of
Scientology.

After an emotionally exhausting couple of days with Jesse, on Friday morning,
July 10, I flew to Boston to meet my family for a week-long vacation on Cape
Cod, while Jesse returned home to Minneapolis to prepare for his life to change
radically. We were in touch every day while I was in South Harwich, because as
soon as Jesse touched down in Minneapolis he discovered he was being followed,
and we realized that Scientology had had us under surveillance in Columbus.
Because of the information Jesse has, we had to assume he and I both would at
the very least be under continual surveillance once Scientology found out he had
hooked up with me.

I suggested it would be wise for Jesse to meet with attorney Dan Leipold in
Santa Ana, California, just south of Los Angeles. I thought Jesse should speak
to an attorney as soon as possible about the legal risks to which he was
exposing himself by taking on Scientology. Dan is one of the most experienced
attorneys I know in the strange world of Scientology litigation. He is also
representing Lawrence Wollersheim in the FACTNet litigation and I thought he
would probably be interested in what Jesse knew about possible fraud concerning
the copyrights in question in the FACTNet case. Jesse was extremely apprehensive
about flying to LA, since it was in that city that much of his nightmarish
Scientology experiences occurred. I offered to meet him in LA so that he would
not have to deal with the painful memories alone. He accepted my offer with
great relief and I arranged for both of us to fly into Los Angeles on Saturday
evening, July 18, after my family vacation was over. .

Little did either of us realize that painful memories would be the least of
Jesse’s difficulties during his stay in Los Angeles.

I arrived several hours before Jesse, on Saturday evening, July 18. A dear
friend of both Jesse’s and mine met me at the airport and treated me to a
leisurely dinner until it was time to meet Jesse’s plane. Jesse and our friend
had not seen each other since the late 1970s, so it was a dramatic reunion.
Moreover, they had much to reminisce about, since they were both on the infamous
1977-78 RPF in Los Angeles, when the RPF was forced to renovate the
newly-acquired Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, now known simply as “the Complex” and
best-known for the fact that the entire complex of buildings is painted light
blue. Thirty hours on, three off, that was the schedule during the horrific
sixteen months they spent together in the RPF. Our friend told Jesse the story
of how she escaped, a heartbreaking story Jesse had never heard before, and
Jesse told her what had happened to him after she left Scientology.

The reunion of the three of us was deeply moving. I imagine it to be very much
like the emotion that victims of any totalitarian, terrorist regime must
experience when they are reunited after so many years. For us as former Sea Org
members, our relief was in finding that the three of us had survived with our
sanity at least relatively in tact. We are three of the lucky ones. I have
encountered many former Sea Org members who have seemingly irreparable
psychological, emotional and physical damage, and it is heartbreaking to realize
that they may very well never fully recover. That night Jesse, our mutual friend
and I were poignantly aware of our good fortune.

The next day the harassment began.

Jesse and I took a short drive for some morning coffee at Starbuck’s and quickly
realized we were being followed. We decided to confirm our suspicion by taking a
circuitous route and, sure enough, we confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that
we had tail. There were two different cars on us, and wherever we went one or
the other was always behind us.

The next day we visited a former Scientologist in a suburb north of Los Angeles.
While we were there, a neighbor called to say there were two cars parked outside
of her house, and that a man had actually come to her door trying to get
information about Jesse and me. The neighbor described the cars for us and gave
us the license plates. She also assured us that she had totally refused to
cooperate with Scientology’s hired thugss.

When Jesse and I left our friend’s house several hours later, sure enough, the
two cars the neighbor had described pulled out and began to follow us. It was
dark by then, and the truth is that neither Jesse nor I see very well at night.
So we got lost several times and ended up driving around in circles trying to
get home. Somehow our tail got in front of us, and we laughed as we pulled up
behind them at a stoplight. When the light turned green, our Scientology friends
sped off into the darkness, undoubtedly embarrassed at their clumsy attempt at
surveillance. By the way, Scientology has no idea how many quiet enemies it has.
The friend with whom Jesse and I were staying had another houseguest at the
time, a non-Scientologist. He jumped right into the fray, directing us to park
our car in a parking lot near our friend’s house, picking us up in his own car,
getting us to lie down on the back seat so the Scientology tails wouldn’t see
us, and safely delivering us home. All the while, private investigators were
circling the house as if we were carrion. And Jesse hadn’t said a word about
Scientology yet!

I had to leave Jesse in LA to go to Wellspring (that will be the subject of a
separate post coming very soon), but Vaughn flew down to be with him so he
wouldn’t be alone. The day after I left, Vaughn and Jesse were at Dan Leipold’s
officeworking on a declaration for the FACTNet case concerning Scientology’s
extensive copyright fraud. Suddenly Jesse heard someone shouting his name
through the window.

“Hey, Jesse! Come out here!” they were yelling. It was obvious that the two
people were OSA operatives, so, of course, Jesse didn’t go outside. One of the
operatives finally opened the door himself and threw a letter addressed to Jesse
inside the door. It was a letter threatening to sue Jesse if he said a word
about what he knew about Scientology. But, as Jesse told me on the phone that
night, it was too late to frighten him. The blanket of fear was being rolled
back, and the war was on.

Two days later Jesse was falsely detained by two private investigators at four
in the morning as he returned to his hotel. As he pulled into the parking lot,
they pulled up behind him so that he couldn’t move his car and handed him
another threatening letter. Jesse lost his temper at them, and one of the PI’s
responded by screaming at Jesse, “You black motherfucker! I’m going to blow your
damn head off!”

As Jesse said later, that PI obviously didn’t realize that as a veteran Sea Org
member, Jesse was quite used to racial slurs. Jesse just watched the guy spit
and stammer, and then he chased him to the highway in his red convertible
Mustang.

Meanwhile, I left Los Angeles and flew to Boston on Friday, July 24. I was
literally exhausted after the harassment Jesse and I had been subjected to in
L.A., and I badly needed a rest. Bob met me at the airport and told me that
someone pretending to be my “travel agent” had called the house in Boston the
night before and told Therese what flight I was coming in on. Although Therese
already knew about the relationship between Bob and me and knew that I was
flying to Boston, having an obvious Scientology operative call her and throw
this in her face had been extremely upsetting for her, particularly because she
was scheduled to leave for England Friday morning with the two girls. Bob told
me about this phone call on the way to his house in Sandown, New Hampshire,
where we planned to spend a quiet weekend before I went to Wellspring. But as
all of you know by now, it turned out to be anything but a quiet weekend in New
Hampshire.

On Saturday afternoon, July 25, Bob and I were swimming in the pool on his
property in New Hampshire. Bob was telling me about a phone call he had received
from high-level Scientology operative Mike Rinder. Bob was telling me that
Scientology had had Jesse and me under surveillance when we met for the first
time in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday, July 8, and that the reason he knew this
was that on Sunday, July 19, he had received a telephone call from Rinder.
During the phone call Rinder let Bob know that he was aware that Jesse Prince
had met with me in Ohio, and he demanded to know if Jesse Prince was on Bob’s
payroll, meaning was he now paying Jesse to do anti-Scientology work. Bob told
me he had replied that he was not, but because of that phone call Bob had known
the harassment of both Jesse and me was going to increase, and that was exactly
what had happened in Los Angeles.

This was at about 5:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. I suddenly looked up the hill
toward the driveway and saw someone standing at the top of the hill near the
barn, looking down at us in the pool. When another person appeared and began to
shout my name along with outrageous obscenities, we both realized with alarm
that it was Scientologists on Bob’s property.

As Bob wrote in his report to the New Hampshire prosecutor, “At that point I
knew that the Scientologists were trespassing on my property and invading my
privacy for the express purpose of continuing their campaign of harassment and
intimidation against Stacy Young and myself. Having experienced this harassment
for the past year, I was fully aware that these people are fanatical in their
beliefs and that they had been indoctrinated into believing that both Stacy
Young and I were dangerous criminals. There is a policy in Scientology known as
“Fair Game,” which states that anyone who is a threat to Scientology can be
“lied to, tricked, sued, and destroyed” in any way necessary without the
perpetrator being punished in any way. I fully believed this to be the state of
mind of the Scientologists on my property and considered that both Stacy Young
and I were in physical danger as long as these people were trespassing on my
property.

As everyone knows, the final outcome of this incident was that no charges were
filed against Bob and the Scientologists were warned never to set foot on his
property again. But it was an extremely stressful weekend.

The next day, Sunday, July 26, Bob got a call from Therese in England saying
that a letter had been hand-delivered to her father’s house outside of London.
The letter was signed by Mike Rinder and was filled with terrible information
about a number of people that Bob has assisted, but the majority of the letter
was filled with scurrilous information about me, clearly calculated to upset
Therese as much as possible.

Later that day, Bob drove me down to Boston so I could take a flight to
Columbus, Ohio, and from there I drove south to Wellspring. As soon as I
arrived, I arranged for Jesse to fly to New Hampshire to stay with Bob to make
sure he was safe while I was in Ohio. Jesse flew to Boston on July 27 and was
there until August 8. As I had expected, Jesse and Bob became the best of
friends during the week he stayed there.

Later Jesse would tell me that he was amazed to meet Bob, and utterly surprised
to meet someone who has compassion for people who have had a bad experience that
he has not personally had. As Jesse pointed out, the common reaction of people
toward ex-cult members is that they are strange and somehow basically stupid ,
easily manipulated people. But the fact of the matter is that it’s just plain
bad luck when a person gets into a cult, and it could and does happen to almost
anyone. Bob understands that, and Jesse loves him for it.

As Jesse told me after his trip to New Hampshire, “Bob restored my faith and
belief in humanity. I don’t know how else to describe it beyond that. Bob has
the courage of a lion and the heart and mind of an angel. He is not afraid of
anything I’ve seen yet.”

From New Hampshire Jesse flew to Minneapolis to pack up his things and get ready
for his life to change radically. Vaughn flew to Minneapolis to meet Jesse so
that he would have someone with him while he prepared to move to Boulder. The
most difficult part about getting Vaughn to Minneapolis was that MacPherson, our
85-pound dog, had to go with him. Mac is the dog who was kidnapped last February
and beaten brutally while Vaughn was in Germany testifying against Scientology.
You’ll be glad to know that he has fully recovered from the beating. The only
vestige of it is that he is missing all of his bottom front teeth, but that
doesn’t bother Mac at all. He and Vaughn are inseparable, so, of course, he goes
everywhere Vaughn goes. He is a very large dog (and an excellent watchdog – if
anyone ever tried to hurt Vaughn they would probably lose an arm) so it took a
while to find a crate big enough to hold him, and then we had to find a flight
that would allow him on. But we solved all of these logistical problems and
Vaughn and Mac arrived safely in Minneapolis.

FACTNet purchased a car for Jesse’s use when he got to Minneapolis. Two days
later, one of Scientology’s hired thugs kicked in the passenger door of the car
(there is a picture of kicked-in door on alt.binaries.scientology).

Jesse took Vaughn on a fairly wild journey to Chicago, where he got a chance to
meet Jesse’s Blues/Rock Star brother Ron. In vintage Jesse style, the two of
them ran all around the North and South sides of Chicago, visting old friends
and having a good time meeting new people.

They left Chicago and went to visit Jesse’s daughter and his grandchildren in a
small town in southern Illinois, then headed for Memphis, Tennesse, where
Jesse’s father and sister live. As it happened, Vaughn checked into a hotel
right across the street from Graceland, and it happened to be Elvis week. So
Vaughn enjoyed the Elvis celebration while Jesse had a great time with his
father and sister, whose birthday happened to be just when they were there. The
best part of the trip for Jesse, though, was that he met his great-nephew
Malachi, who is two years old and, according to Jesse, is a “joy to behold.”

While Jesse and Vaughn were ennroute to Denver, I was finishing my stay at
Wellspring. What an incredible place!

Because of several extremely harassive visits from Scientology private
investigator Eugene Ingram a few years back, Wellspring has a gate at the
beginning of their driveway which they kept locked most of the time while I was
there to protect me from being harassed. So my two-week stay was wonderfully
free of Scientologists or private investigators — until Bob Minton arrived
toward the end of my stay. He came to Wellspring so that he and I could speak to
one of the counselors there together. As he drove up to the Wellspring gate he
was met with several scruffy looking individuals who soon made it clear that
they were Scientologists, there to take photographs of Bob and me.

We took down their license plate numbers and reported them to the local sheriff,
who was already familiar with their tactics because of the trouble Wellspring
had had with Scientology earlier. The sheriff was very supportive and told us to
let him know immediately if we had any further instances of being followed or
harassed in any way. We assumed the Scientologists found out that the sheriff
was on the look-out for them, because we didn’t see them again for the duration
of our stay.

When we left Wellspring Bob and I stopped briefly in Washington, D.C., to have
dinner with a high-level media contact, and then on Sunday, August 9, I returned
to Vashon Island and he flew back to Boston.

Vaughn and Jesse made it to Denver in time for Jesse to be deposed in the
FACTNet case in a grueling three-day confrontation with Scientology attorney
Samuel Rosen. I met Jesse in Denver on Tuesday, August 18, so that I could
attend the deposition as a FACTNet director. Also attending were Ford Greene,
representing Jesse, Dan Leipold, representing Lawrence Wollersheim, Lawrence
himself (who is also named in the suit as an individual), and, sitting on
Rosen’s side of the table for Scientology, Mike Rinder and RTC staff member
Allan Cartwright. Jesse was senior to both of these Scientology operatives when
he was in RTC, so it was fascinating to observe these two as they reacted to
Jesse’s testimony. I won’t go into details here about the deposition, because it
will be the subject of another post once Scientology’s protective order is
lifted. I will say, however, that I have never seen anyone treated with more
contempt, discourtesy and blatant racism than Jesse was by Sam Rosen in that
deposition. It was staggering. To Jesse’s credit, he maintained his composure
throughout the deposition and never once rose to Rosen’s bait. Jesse is truly
and profoundly a gentleman.

One night while we were all in Denver, Scientology sent a call girl in on Jesse
to try to entrap him. The woman stole a $100 bill that Jesse put on the table
to pay for the drink he had bought her in the bar of the hotel where we were
staying. Jesse was so irritated that she had stolen his money!

“Now, I know this girl was being well paid,” Jesse laughingly complained to me
later. “Why did she have to rob poor me?”

Oddly, Scientology also hired a gay man to try to entrap Jesse. Anyone who knows
Jesse Prince at all can tell you that he has never had any interest and probably
never will have any interest in anything but women. As Jesse put it, “With all
the pc folder information they have about me and use against me, I have no idea
why they thought I might go for a gay guy.”

Needless to say, Jesse didn’t fall for either of Scientology’s attempts to
entrap him.

After the deposition Jesse remained in Boulder to begin a thorough debriefing
with Lawrence Wollersheim, and I returned to Vashon Island. (This debriefing
will be the subject of a series of stunning posts in the near future.)

Neither Ford Greene, Dan Leipold, Jesse nor I had been aware of any surveillance
while the deposition was ongoing. But as soon as Ford, Dan and I left and Jesse
was alone in Boulder, the PIs descended upon him in force. Jesse told me that
one day the PIs were following him in such a harassive way that he was forced to
call the police four times. The police ordered a female PI to leave Jesse alone
and watched to make sure she didn’t follow Jesse as he drove away. But when he
arrived at the house where he was staying, the very same female PI was waiting
for him, laughing, in front of the house.

During this same period of time, on Monday, August 24, Scientologists picketed
the financial district in Boston and for several hours distributed fliers
concerning the relationship between Bob Minton and me. It was the distribution
of these fliers that prompted Bob to post his now-famous message on a.r.s. in
which he announced that he and I are getting married. What immediately preceeded
this post was a private email from one of the regulars on a.r.s. attacking Bob
really harshly for “not living up to proper moral standards.” He was extremely
upset by the distribution of the fliers, and the private message just hit him
the wrong way. He tried to reach me before he posted his announcement but I was
in Seattle and unreachable. When he finally reached me in the early evening, he
was extremely upset about what had happened that day and told me the stress of
Scientology’s harassment had nearly broken him. He read me what he had posted
about our relationship. I suppose it was because of the stress of having
Scientology turn our personal lives into a fishbowl that we decided that night
that we would no longer hide our relationship in any way.

The next morning Bob flew into Seattle. I was there to meet him, and as we got
off the escalator from the gate, we nearly ran into four picketers holding signs
about Bob Minton and me. This was the first of a series of pickets which have
happened everywhere we have flown in the past two weeks. Somehow the
Scientologists know when both of us are flying, what airlines we are taking, our
flight number and the gate where we will arrive in the airport. They have met
every plane either of us has taken since Bob’s post on August 23.

They have picketed not only our flghts. Bob was in Seattle from Tuesday, August
24, until Thursday, August 26, when we both flew to San Francisco. While he was
in Seattle the Scientologists picketed the hotel where we were staying in
downtown Seattle and my cat sanctuary on Vashon Island. The hotel security ran
them off at the hotel, and Vashon’s local sheriff ordered them off the island
when he discovered them on Vashon.

On Wednesday, August 25, my assistant at the sanctuary reported to me that she
had received two telephone death threats. The calls seemed to come from two
different people, and both callers assumed that it was I who answered the phone.
The callers said roughly the following:

“Listen, you fucking cunt, you better get that black bastard in the witness
protection program because we’re going to fucking kill him. Do you understand,
you fucking whore?”

Forgive my language, but I want you to have the full impact of these calls. My
assistant was terrified, and Bob and I were both extremely alarmed at this
dramatic shift in Scientology’s approach. I called Jesse and Lawrence
immediately to let them both know Scientology was now threatening to kill Jesse.
Soon afterwards I received two telephone calls from the FBI wanting full details
of the telephone death threats. I spoke to the FBI agents at great length,
briefing them on the full implications of Jesse’s knowledge of Scientology’s
crimes and assuring them that the Scientology leadership is perfectly capable of
murdering Jesse to keep his knowledge from ever surfacing. To my knowledge, the
FBI has had Jesse under surveillance protection ever since and is keeping
detailed records of all the Scientology tails they are able to ascertain.

Bob and I flew to San Francisco on Friday, August 28, to meet with Ford Greene
and several other people. Our departure was not without incident, as a lone
picketer said goodbye to us as we boarded the plane at the Seattle airport. When
we arrived at the San Francisco airport we were confronted with several
picketers with signs about Bob and me. They were extremely rude and continued to
harass us until we reached the baggage claim area of the airport.

The next day Bob and I, along with Grady Ward, Keith Henson, and several others,
picketed the San Franicisco org. Several Scientologists came out and distributed
leaflets about Bob Minton and me to anyone who received a flier about Lisa
McPherson from Grady Ward or a flier about Xenu from Kristi. Kristi, I might
add, is better at working a crowd than anyone I’ve seen at any trade show.
Otherwise, it was a peaceful demonstration that concluded without further
incident.

The next morning Therese Minton called Bob to let him know that Scientologists
had picketed their homes in Boston and New Hampshire, in both locations passing
out fliers about Bob and me. She was angry at the despicable tactics of the
Scientologists and concerned that these fliers were being passed out where
friends of the Minton children might recieve them. Therese had gone out and
photographed the picketers. She was not in the least bit intimidated by them.
She was merely furious at them for their hypocrisy in feigning concern for the
children while doing everything possible to hurt them.

This incident upset Bob a great deal, and after a meeting with Grady, we were
ready for a long walk in downtown San Francisco just to try to relax. We set out
from our hotel toward Fisherman’s Wharf. When we had walked several blocks Bob
decided we should turn back and get a map from the Fairmont Hotel. We were
nearly to the front door of the Fairmont when we suddenly realized that one of
the Scientology operatives we had seen at the org the day before was standing
with his back to us in front of the Fairmont, holding a walkie-talkie to his
mouth, and saying, “They’re heading back toward their hotel now; they’re in
front of the Fairmont.”

We were flabbergasted that we were being stalked like this by Scientology. Bob
was in no mood to be cordial to this Scientology goon. He walked over to him and
demanded to know why he was following us. The Scientologist sneered at Bob and
said, “I’m a citizen of San Francisco. I have as much right to be here as you
do.”

At that, Bob called the San Franicisco police and reported that we were being
stalked, that we had been met at our gate at the San Francisco airport by
Scientologists, that they were stalking us all across the country, meeting us
wherever we fly, and now here they were stalking us through the streets of San
Francisco. We followed this man for many blocks, deep into the heart of
Chinatown, keeping tabs on him until the police could arrive. Every few feet the
Scientologist (we later found out his name was Mark Warlick) stopped and
pretended to be videoing scenes from Chinatown as if he were a tourist. Later
one of the police officers suggested that he was probably erasing the footage he
had taken of Bob and me in case they confiscated his camera. When the police
arrived the officer did take the video camera, although he later returned it.

This Scientologist, Mark Warlick, admitted to the police that he was one of the
people who met us at our gate two days before, so it was obvious to the police
that the Scientologists were harassing us. But when the police sergeant finally
arrived and interviewed both the Scientologist and Bob and me, he came to the
conclusion, albeit reluctantly, that Mark Warlick had not technically broken any
law.

“Listen,” he said to us, “you two are celebrities, and there is just no way to
control what people are going to do when you arrive in town. It’s the same
problem politicians have. People picket them, they follow them, they yell at
them, and what can the police do? Unless these people actually break the law, we
can’t arrest them.”

This was unnerving to hear from a law enforcement officer. Bob and I looked at
each other in dismay as we realized that what this policeman had just told us
was that Scientology would be able to continue to harass us and there was
nothing the law of the United States could do to stop them.

The sergeant did warn Mark Warlick that he had come dangerously close to
breaking the stalking law, and he did tell him to let all the other Scientology
operatives know that if they crossed the line and broke the law they would be
arrested. The sneer on Mark Warlick’s face that he had had when we first saw him
in front of the Fairmont Hotel was definitely gone by the time the police let
him go. But the incident had had a profound effect on Bob and me.

We returned to our hotel room and talked about what had happened. What we
realized was that the only way we can deal with the harassment from Scientology
is to refuse to be intimidated by them in any way.

We went out and purchased a large portfolio case that holds up to ten picket
signs and sticks. When we left San Francisco for Boulder, Colorado, to visit
Jesse and to have a board meeting with Lawrence Wollersheim, we carried our
portfolio case on board the airplane with us. When we landed in Denver, I got
out my digital camera, and Bob carried the portfolio case with him as we walked
out to the gate.

I saw Jesse with several picketers as I rounded the corner to the gate and I
immediately started shooting pictures. Bob pulled out picket signs, handed one
to Jesse and held up one himself, and we immediately turned the tables on these
Scientology picketers. Bob and Jesse were following the picketers and I was
taking photographs of the entire incidents. Bob was announcing to everyone in
the airport that these were Scientologists who were stalking us, following us
everywhere we go and trying to frighten us into silence so we won’t expose the
true nature of their so-called “church.”

We got on the shuttle to baggage claim and noticed that the Scientology
picketers purposely did not get on the shuttle. So when our shuttle arrived, we
waited for the next one. When the picketers got off, we began shooting their
photos again and following them with our own picket signs, again announcing
loudly who they were and why they were there. By the time we were finished with
them, these four picketers had their signs between their legs and they were
running out of the airport.

The next night Jesse, Lawrence, Bob and I had dinner at the Boulderado Hotel. At
a certain point we recognized someone from the ARSCC Boulder Underground
standing outside the restaurant. Bob went out to say hello and when he came
back, he reported that there were approximately seven to ten Scientology PIs
surrounding the hotel, but that the ARSCC Boulder Underground had successfully
scrambled the radio signals of the PIs and disrupted their surveillance so
effectively that most of them had given up and left.

Today I flew home to Seattle and Bob and Jesse flew to Boston. When I arrived on
Vashon Island I was met with picketers right up the street from the sanctuary,
undoubtedly because the sheriff warned them if they trespassed on private
property again he would arrest them.

When Jesse and Bob got off their plane in Boston they were met by seven
picketers, including the DSA Maureen O’Keefe, OSA operative Gerard Renna, Frank
Hall, and several others who have picketed in Boston before.

Immediately Bob pulled picket signs out of his portfolio case and both of them
held picket signs up while Bob also took photos with his digital camera, so he
could download them right away to post on alt.binries.scientology.

Maureen came at Bob with, as he put it, “a stomach that stuck out three feet
from her face,” and holding the taunting a.r.s. post that Bob had sent from the
airplane announcing that he and Jesse were arriving in Boston and providing OSA
with their flight number. Gerard Renna was also trying to get in Bob’s face,
although he is so short that he wasn’t able to reach.

Both Jesse and Bob pointed out to Renna on several occasions that he was in
serious need of mouthwash, as they were having a very difficult time every time
he got close to them.

The Scientologists were extremely hostile all along, but they were unable to
stop the verbal tech of the tag-team duo, Bob and Jesse. Finally in the baggage
claim area the encounter became so boisterous that the Massachusetts state
troopers had to come in to restore order. When they found out that Jesse and Bob
were passengers who had arrived on a flight from Denver, had been stalked
through the terminal, and were trying to pick up their bags, they told the
Scientologists that had they known they were demonstating at the gate or
anywhere in the airport, for that matter, they would have arrested them, as FAA
regulations prohibit such activities.

The Scientologists were removed to a neutral location, where they couldn’t
bother Bob and Jesse while they left the airport.

Bob called Therese from the car and told her what had happened at the airport,
but Therese said she wasn’t afraid of “those fools” and told them to go ahead
and go to the house. But four Scientologist followed Bob and Jesse to a house
they knew Bob no longer lives in, specifically for the purpose of upsetting
Therese and the children. Jesse went outside of the Beacon Hill house and spoke
to the four Scientologists. DSA Maureen O’Keefe told the other three to stay
away from Jesse, but Gerard Renna and the other two Scientologists gathered
round him and listened, spellbound, as he told them the real story of life in
the inner circle of Scientology leadership.

This conversation with Jesse continued until two Boston police cars arrived and
ordered the Scientologists to leave.

From now on, we will document every instance of harassment or attempted
intimidation by Scientology. Soon we’ll have a web page set up that will get
daily updates of harassment from all over the country, complete with photographs
and video footage where appropriate.

INTRODUCTION: The length of this post is relevant to its subject. It does
include some Scientologese. If you find a word you don’t understand, call
your local Dianetics or Scientology organization and ask them to define
it. They like people to do this. Be sure to tell them you are reading
alt.religion.scientology.

Hi, guys. Long time no write, which is what this post is really about.

I’ve been posting to ARS for a few years now and then I disappeared,
although I was occasionally in touch with several of you via email. I
want to tell you what’s been going on. Plus it will give the criminal cult
something to whine, bitch, carp, natter, scream, cry, rant about which
might get someone’s stats up there so they can get a day off to do their
laundry. (Boy, do I remember that routine!)

For those who don’t know me, I was in the cult for nearly 21 years. (I
know that Martin Hunt has archived some of my posts at
<http://www.islandnet.com/~martinh/rvy/rvy.htm>.) Because I spoke out,
they had to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last five
years trying to silence me and probably even think they finally did it.
Right. Read on.

If you can manage about 7,000 words, this post will tell you more than the
cult wants you to know.

TRAVELS WITH JESSE

You’ve heard about Jesse Prince. Well, I was with him having a great time
in Southern California back in July, when he was at Dan Leipold’s law
offices. Of course, we were being followed by the Church of Paranoia’s
criminal Dept. 20 and typical of their ineptness, we slipped in behind
them and followed them for awhile. It was hilarious they way they
panicked, zipping and dashing about through traffic while we kept on their
tails, sometimes bumper-to-bumper, reading license plates and laughing our
heads off in this darling red Mustang convertible, with the top down.
(Hey, do it in style!) If this was a paid PI, Rinder should ask for a
refund as they were a pathetic joke. Anyway, we did it for a while and
then tired and left them, wondering if they would tell the truth in their
report how they screwed it up. Again.

Later I went back to Minneapolis, where Jesse lived. We spent a few days
there while he wrapped up things and then we toodled on over to Chicago to
visit relatives and hung out in the Windy City for a few days, checking
out everything from the music clubs to Lake Michigan. I had my dog Mac
with me and we romped on the sands and down in the water, having a great
time. (Meanwhile someone told me the OSA sock puppets on ARS were saying
how I’ve disappeared. Yup. With Jesse in a red Mustang convertible. LOL!)

From there we went south to visit more relatives, caring less if the
paranoid criminal cult was tracking us. Let em spend Travolta’s money to
get nuttin’. After a few days here and there, we turned west and ambled
across Kansas (spare me from EVER driving across Kansas again) and into
Colorado.

HELP! RVY IS MISSING!

So while the OSA sock puppets were claiming I was missing, they were lying
to you. (I’m shocked!) They knew I was with Jesse. (In fact, we enjoyed it
that they knew. It’s called “critical mass.”) They just hated it that two
very good friends were having such a good time!

I should have mentioned that earlier. Jesse and I go back many years, into
the cult. He and I are old buddies and it was great spending many weeks
with him. He is as outrageous as ever. Runt leader David Miscavige was
always afraid of him and as evidenced by the tantrums of his sock puppets,
he’s still afraid. (By the way, if you ever want to see a good portrayal
of the runt-punk, watch Al Pachino’s character in the movie “Scarface,”
who can’t complete a sentence without three forms of the word “fuck.” But
perhaps the best example of life with DM is truly Kevin Spacey’s abusive
character in the movie “Swimming With Sharks,” which takes place in
Hollywood. Small world. But then so is DM.)

ON BEING A WRITER

As to what I else I have been doing and will be doing, I am doing some
intense writing and in such an effort – for those of you who haven’t had
the experience – it requires considerable time and solitude. And in my
case, more than usual, as you will find out.

It was no accident that I chose the handle “writer” when I set up my
Eskimo.com account years ago. I’ve been writing all of my life. It is
not only a love of the Muse but it can be a curse, as many a writer will
tell you. Mine was both.

I did a lot of writing in the cult, but there is little there of any
pride. Since then, I won some awards but nothing else captivated me until
now. So sit back and let me tell you how it happened. I think some of you
will find some of this interesting.

THE HUBBARD ARCHIVES

Let’s start in late 1981, when I happened to acquire the archives that
contained Hubbard’s private papers. (These were the ones that Gerry
Armstrong started.) The truly essential material came down to perhaps 15
linear feet of paper. Over the months, with nothing else to do, I had a
chance to read private letters, papers and manuscripts (including the
three, yes, three, versions of the infamous Excalibur, which has to be the
most overblown piece of hype he EVER produced and, no, it has NOTHING to
do with OT3), which also gave me the full uncensored view of this man. I
read everything from love letters to (and from and about) his mistresses,
his girlfriends (such as Fern, who gave him the clap, forcing him to
secretly take sulfa), his private pornographic ramblings (he liked to draw
penises and vaginas around the margins in red ink, which gave the page a
grisly look), his black magic material, his letters to family, wives (in
the early 1950s, while having mistress Barbara on the side and at the same
time preaching about the dangers of illicit relationships), editors and
even to himself, as journals.

There was one problem with what I read. It didn’t match what we
(collectively then, meaning the organization) were saying about Hubbard
and what Hubbard, based on what he had say to say. When I tried to gently
point this out, the Shinola hit the fan. It didn’t matter that it was in
Hubbard’s own hand. It didn’t match the story he put out so – straight out
of “1984” – it didn’t exist. (These documents were later confiscated and
sealed away to make sure no staff see them but enough of us did –
including a few still on staff (hi, guys!) – so it can be verified
someday, if it comes to that. But that is another story.)

WRITING FOR HUBBARD

In the years that followed, Hubbard and I had a fascinating relationship
because I was intrigued with him as a writer and I found I could easily
mimick his style, which came in handy later.

But in 1982, drawing from the archival material, I proposed the idea of
the “Ron” magazines. Hubbard loved the idea and we cranked out the first
issue which is a serious collector’s item. (Because Stacy and I produced
it, it no longer officially exists. It is an Orwellian non-mag.)

BIOGRAPHIES AND GHOSTS

At one point I was tagged to be his biographer but the biography went the
way of all the other attempts, ranging from Omar Garrison to Fletcher
Prouty. (Meanwhile I was identified as such, from the San Luis Obispo
paper to the Washington Post in Scientology-produced stories that it is
difficult for the cult to rewrite.)

I also ghosted for Hubbard, meaning I wrote material for which he was
credited, which was not uncommon. I wrote everything from these short
little greetings that were sent to events (staff and public always thought
that Hubbard was writing to them, which always showed us how gullible they
were) to policy letters (I wrote the current disconnection policy with
some help at the end of it by Ray Mitoff, who ghosted a lot of the
technical material and issued it under Hubbard’s name) to ghosting
sections of his “Mission Earth” series, while I was editing it. (And boy,
is THAT another story! Whew!)

HUBBARD’S DEATH

When Hubbard died, everything changed. (duh) I went to the death site (his
ranch at Creston, near San Luis Obispo CA) that night along with David
Miscavige and some attorneys. Since none of us – including Miscavige – had
ever been there, we were met at a restaurant by Pat Broeker who took us to
the ranch. We arrived at perhaps 4 a.m. (Hubbard was found dead at about 8
p.m. I was told at 10. We left LA at perhaps 1 a.m. I wasn’t always
watching the clock, given the circumstances.)

What’s amusing in the cult’s attempt to DA me is their saying that I went
to the ranch along with some gardeners and cooks. Right. Gardeners and
cooks were the first to be rushed up that night, before the authorities
were called or the body taken away. ROFL! Don’t you just love these guys!

Creston was where the story was put together that he had moved on to the
next level of research, or however it was worded, when it was announced at
the Palladium and to the world. The event was so carefully constructed
that no one noticed that something essential was missing, but Ill get to
that in a moment. But during the event, I stayed at the ranch to deal with
any media who might show up or call. None did and less than 48 hours
later, the Challenger space shuttle blew up, bumping news of his death and
any serious questions from the media. I was monitoring the TV news via a
satellite dish and watched it happen and reported it. While the rest of
the world was in shock, DM was happy because we had been bumped from the
news. But that is how one comes to view the world at that echelon.

THE NEWBERRY RANCH

I later moved to another ranch Hubbard owned, at Newberry Springs, east
of Barstow CA and stayed there for a couple of months. Hubbard never
visited it (it was merely a fallback location for him) and I never did see
that anyone learned about this one, even the media. I guess they were all
hung up on the Creston property, near San Luis Obispo, where he died.

The most lasting benefit of my stay at Newberry was that that was where I
stopped smoking. One day DM, Mitoff, Pat Broeker, Mike Eldridge and I were
sitting around and we all agreed to stop smoking, although Broeker was the
only non-smoker. Mitoff had a horrible time of it. He ended up on Skoal
Bandits, spitting disgustingly into a bucket while driving back and forth
to LA, and also addicting me to the little cusses. In the end, I was the
only one who stopped, making me wish we had put some money in a pool.

In the months I spent between the Creston and Newberry ranches, Pat and I
became good friends. He had been Hubbard’s closest and most trusted aide
and confident for those final years. With what I already knew about
Hubbard, Pat and I had the greatest talks. Sometimes Pat and I were the
only ones at the ranch, so we eould chat while moving horses or going to
town to shop. I began to learn about the life Hubbard had lead while in
hiding for those last years, moving between towns in the Bluebird bus and
finally settling down in Creston. (BTIAS)

THE STRUGGLE STARTS – WHO WILL REPLACE HUBBARD?

Meanwhile, a power struggle was brewing to see who would take control of
Scientology and Newberry was the place where many of the discussions
occurred while DM stayed either in LA or in Hemet. (Jesse will have
something to say about that someday because he was seriously involved in
the ensuing explosion.) It would result in a number of people fleeing
(such as Jesse) or going to the RPF (such as me).

A key element in the power struggle was Hubbard’s last message to the
rank-and-file. Those who were in the cult back in 1986-87 will remember
this incident. It was a message from Hubbard that was issued as a Sea Org
directive. It said goodbye, wishing them well and establishing a new
rank/position called Loyal Officer or LO. (The term is taken from OT3.)
Pat was to be the LO1 and his wife Annie was to be LO2 and it basically
turned the management of the Sea Org over to them. And since the SO ran
Scientology, that meant they were at the top of the heap. DM was not
mentioned in the directive. It was later was issued to all staff –
with DM’s approval and authority – reduced in size and put in a small
fram with a photo of Hubbard for the desk of every staff member.

In the meantime, Pat began to slowly take control. I would often get phone
calls from him. He would never identify himself on the phone, going back
to his years of tight security, but merely would say, “Hi, it’s me.”

I won’t try to give the details of the ensuing power struggle because I
was in LA and it was happened at Creston, Newberry and Hemet. (I leave it
to Jesse, who was there.) But the outcome was that Miscavige won. And
typical of any political coup, there was a sudden purge as he consolidated
his power. Anyone DM thought might be a friend of Broeker’s who would pose
a threat were sent to Scientology’s equivalent of Lubayanka Prison or
Siberia: the RPF, so I went. For 16 months and three escape attempts.

Now here is where it gets interesting, folks.

MISCAVIGE CANCELS HUBBARD’S MESSAGE

While I was on the RPF, a directive came out from Miscavige saying the
supposed final message from Hubbard that named Broeker was a forgery by
Broeker and it was being canceled. That same day, Annie Broeker appeared
on the RPF. This was not the Annie I had come to know. What stumbled into
the RPF was a completely broken person. She was pale and hollow and her
eyes were empty. There was no mistaking it. She had been broken and only
now was she being thrown away into the trash heap called the RPF. Even
then, she was kept under guard, just to be sure.

TWO IMPORTANT OMITTEDS

With the cancellation of the message from Hubbard, there were now two
vital things missing that were 100% Hubbard and 100% standard tech and
yet no one seemed to notice or, if they did, no one dared to remark on it.
But then, as Hubbard correctly pointed out, the hardest thing to notice is
the thing that is omitted.

What was now missing was (1) something from Hubbard to all Scientologists
saying goodbye and what he was doing and (2) something that passed his
hat, which is one of the most basic tenets in the organization. They had
been missing at the event announcing his death but with the cancellation
by Miscavige, they were missing more than ever.

WHERE WAS HUBBARD’S MESSAGE?

One does not require much knowledge about L. Ron Hubbard to know that it
would be completely unlike him to simply leave – especially if the story
about his going off to do more research were true – and not leave a
message. So if he HAD left as Scientologists were told, where was the
message if the other was a forgery?

But perhaps more importantly, where was the hat turnover? I don’t mean the
volumes of policies and bulletins. I mean something that says, I hereby
appoint Joe Blow to take over as… Would Hubbard leave the planet and not
pass on the command? Hardly.

Or let’s put it in one of the most basic tenets from Hubbard: if it isn’t
written, it isn’t true.

(Note: Hubbard’s will was hardly a Scientology hat turnover and has not
been issued to the rank and file as policy.)

So the question became (to those of us who wondered), if the LO directive
was a forgery, where was the real one? Where were Hubbard’s wishes IN
WRITING?

MISCAVIGE HAD NOTHING FROM HUBBARD

Of course, DM never provided anything and no one was willing to ask and
risk being sent to the RPF with the rest of us. He said it was a forgery
and that was that. End of discussion.

For the rest of my stay in the cult, Pat Broeker was never mentioned
because, in the cult, you learn what to not talk about. Pat became what in
Orwell’s “1984” is a non-person. He had been written out of history, with
anyone who cared (such as me) being sent to the RPF or interrogated
(security checked) until they got the point, which meant (per the head on
a pike policy) that everyone else got the message.

So without a shred of WRITTEN evidence from Hubbard and by canceling what
even DM had first agreed was from Hubbard, Miscavige was now in control
while Broeker had disappeared.

Can you say, “coup”?

But hold on! It gets better.

READING THE MATERIAL ANEW

After Stacy and I fled the cult in 1989, I put it all behind me. I simply
wanted my life back and the last thing I needed was to think about the
cult. They had taken enough of my life without my adding more. But after a
couple of years of drying out, Stacy and I were invited to help with some
legal cases and this gave us a chance to handle the material that once
handled us. We could now read Hubbard and TALK about the material, which
is completely forbidden in the cult. It was like back-flushing a radiator
and watching what comes out.

I came across a copy of Miscavige’s cancellation of Hubbards final message
and I began to kick it around with Stacy. As we talked, I started to
comment on the various little oddities, starting with the cancellation
itself. I began to remember a few others that I had packed away at the
time. We were having a conversation that Sea Org staff could no more do
than a loyal Communists might question the a change of power in the
Kremlin, and for the same reasons.

AN “ACCEPTABLE TRUTH” IS FED SCIENTOLOGISTS

In the weeks and months that followed, I couldn’t shake the events
surrounding Hubbard’s death and DM’s takeover. Little oddities took on
forms like pieces of a jig saw puzzle. I felt like an amnesiac trying to
recover his memory yet what was there to recover? I was there at the
ranch. I was there when Hubbard’s body was taken out. I was there when the
execs were called up the ranch and told to get an event together, but not
being told why. I was there when the attorneys reported his death and then
scurried to get the body through the coroner. Etc, etc, etc. So what was
the problem? Yeah, the next higher level of research story was the sort of
pap we used to feed the rank-and-file all the time but it wasn’t as if we
LIED to them. (Sort of the way Clinton said he didn’t LEGALLY lie.) We
didn’t LEGALLY lie, did we?

Per Hubbard’s policy, they were given an “acceptable truth” because of
“the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.” What that means
in plain speak was that there would be panic and disaffection in the ranks
if it was thought that Hubbard – the OT of all OTs, of course – was not at
cause over life and death. If the tech couldn’t help him, how could it
help others? That was the myth that had to be protected at all costs and
that was what the story did when his death was announced. It fed the myth
that everyone so wanted to believe. (And it kept the money coming in.)

WORKING WITH PUZZLE PIECES

While in the cult, I had done a lot of investigative reporting and some of
the best I did was working on some of the CIA’s mind control documents
created under the code name MK ULTRA. When the CIA released them, much was
blanked out and working with a team of people hand-selected by Stacy, we
went through documents that the media had skipped past because they were
so fragmentary and so heavily deleted. In one file, for example, there
were receipts for the installation of mufflers on a 1953 Mercury, a tiny
battery-powered motor, elevator tickets to the Empire State Building, nose
plugs, a receipt for someone to attend a Microscropy convention, etc.

Bit by bit, we struggled to give them meaning until one piece cracked
another, like breaking a code. We came up with the experiment and got
national news on Operation Big City where bacillus were released (through
the mufflers) to test for bacterial warfare. (The elevator tickets were so
agents could go up and measure the amount of released bacteria.) It is a
story the cult still likes to cite, along with several others I did for
them, under my byline in the Freedom rag. Since then, per Orwell, my name
has been deleted, of course.

Pouring over those heavily deleted CIA documents was how I felt like while
I chewed on the oddities around Hubbard’s death, such as nothing in
writing from him, Broeker missing, the fact that Denk (Hubbard’s physician
at the time of death) had also disappeared, Annie’s appearance and little
things that I had seen and learned at the ranch.

THE BLUE FLASH

And then it hit me. It was what Hubbard calls a blue flash, the sudden
insight.

Hubbard didn’t die.

He was killed.

I fell back in my chair, completely stunned. In all of the years since
1986, I had never once considered that possibility. Even with my being
long out of the cult and directing criticism at various practices and
policies, the thought had never crossed my mind that Hubbard might have
been killed.

I got a sheet of paper and began to take notes, my heart pounding and my
breathing hurried. That nagging feeling had turned into an adrenaline rush
that I couldn’t explain.

Who was there at the Creston ranch when Hubbard died?

* Pat Broeker – MIA.

* Annie Broeker – broken, under their control.

* Two Scientology ranch hands. While trusted to work on the ranch, I
came to see how much they were kept out of the loop.

* Gene Denk – Hubbard’s personal physician. (And mine. Small world.)
Denk had disappeared for a year after the death, which was one of those
oddities, before returning to his practice up the street from the main
Hollywood complex.

End of list, a too-short list so I started to add who went up that night
in the three-car caravan that included DM, some attorneys and a couple of
us “gardeners and cooks.” Nothing there.

I looked at the list. Pat Broeker was the only possibility, if he was out
and alive. For all I knew, he was dead or locked up somewhere and in a
mental state that approximated cold oatmeal. There was no middle ground.
He wouldn’t have been given a safe back-lines job or I would have heard
about it.

SEARCHING FOR BROEKER

So how would I find Pat Broeker, if he was alive. I racked my memory,
trying to dig out some clue he might have given me in the months that we
were together but I came up with nothing. My tendency to not inquire about
a person’s personallife had just sold me short. I didn’t even know what
state he was from. Who might? Who would know where he came from or where
he was born? I needed some clue to start the search and the problem was
the security that Pat used for his job. He had explained to me how any
trace of him had been wiped out, to ensure that no one could find Hubbard
by finding him. Plus if Pat had escaped or fled, he was skilled enough to
hide from any search as that was what he had been doing for years to hide
Hubbard from the authorities.

I finally remembered one location he told me about and sent a message
there saying that I was trying to reach him but no reply came. After a few
months I sent another and waited. The months turned into nearly a year and
I basically gave up until one day when the phone rang.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi,” came a voice. “It’s me.”

I paused, saying nothing.

“Pat?” I finally said with some incredulity. “Is that you?”

“Yeah,” he said, with what I swear was a twinkle in his voice. “How are
you?”

What a question!

RINDER WAKES UP

Let’s jump ahead a few years when I was in a deposition in Denver, in the
FACTNet case. The usual goon squad was there, including Mike Rinder, who
proudly heads up the criminal Dept. 20 where Scientology’s felons are
produced. Rinder was struggling to stay awake in the corner while the cult
attorney was going through a list of names, wanting to know if I had
spoken with any of them. Rinder’s head was bobbing as the attorney asked
monotonously, “Pat Broeker?”

I glanced at Rinder. I had to enjoy this one.

“Yes,” I said.

I couldn’t have gotten a faster reaction with a bucket of water. Rinder
jumped awake and looked at me in shock, fear and hatred. I smiled.

The questions about my involvement with Broeker were routine, from a list
that they asked for each person I named but Broeker wasn’t routine. They
soon stopped to take a break. Like the good sock puppet that he is, Rinder
dashed out of the room, obviously to call DM. (I so wish I could have
watched DM’s face too.) About 15 minutes later, Rinder returned and shoved
some questions at the attorney and the depo continued. But little was
gained and not one question was asked about what Pat might have told me
about Hubbard’s death, if he had at all. They clearly didn’t want it
on the record, under oath. I found it amusing, this great powerful cult
was so terrified of the subject, not to mention Broeker.

So let me tell you a little bit about Pat: he’s doing fine and his sense of
humor has improved. End of a little bit.

THE CORONER’S REPORT

Now lets back up a tad, before Pat and I spent several days together,
going over old times. I went to San Luis Obispo, the county seat for where
Hubbard died. It was there that I got the full coroner’s report from a
very friendly deputy sheriff. I poured over the pages and noticed that
something called Vistaril was found in Hubbard’s blood. Since the cause of
death was a stroke, I assumed it was a stroke medication so I didn’t
bother further. Several days later, I called a physician friend and was
going over the documents and the medical language.

“By the way,? I asked casually, “what’s Vistaril?”

“A psychiatric tranquilizer,” he answered matter-of-factly.

I nearly dropped the phone.

“Excuse me,” I said in near-shock, “but what did you say?”

“Vistaril is a psychiatric tranquilizer, usually injected through the
buttocks.”

I flipped to the document where the Coroner had examined Hubbard’s body. I
read it to my friend, about the needle puncture wounds found on the left
buttock, under a band-aid. “Could that be the Vistaril shots,” I asked.

“Probably,” he said. “That’s where they are usually given.”

I looked at the Coroner’s report and the blood sample report.

Holy shit, I said to myself, in my best French. Holy fucking shit.

THE AUTOPSY IS PROHIBITED

I pulled out another document, signed by Hubbard. It prohibited any
autopsy of his body on religious grounds, which was legally binding on
officials. DM and attorney Earle Cooley had shoved it at the coroner to
stop him, leaving him to take only blood samples, which turned up the
Vistaril.

So, I thought, L. Ron Hubbard, the man who fought psychiatry since 1950
and who railed against the dangers of any psychiatric drugs had died with
them in his brain while signing a new last will.

Plus even the coroner was suspicious of the will as it had been signed by
Hubbard just before he died. Coincidences like that tend to make coroner’s
worry. (I wonder what the coroner would have thought had he known that
Denk was gambling at Lake Tahoe when Hubbard had his stroke, as several
people can attest. The impression the coroner had was that Denk was “in
attendence” with Hubbard not only at death but was there at the stroke,
having stayed at the ranch for months. Hmmm….)

I fell back in my chair, trying to catch my breath.

OUTPOINTS? WHAT OUTPOINTS?

Okay, I said to myself, lets see if we understand this. Hubbard signs a
will while on the psychiatric tranquilizer Vistaril and then dies. The
coroner cannot conduct an autopsy because Hubbard also signed a paper
(also while on Vistaril?) prohibiting an autopsy on religious grounds. The
Scientologist doctor who was in attendance (except when he went to Lake
Tahoe and Hubbard had the stroke) signs the death certificate as the
physician attending to Hubbard and then disappears for a year. Then even
though David Miscavige has nothing else in writing from Hubbard, he
cancels Hubbard’s last message and hat transfer to trusted aide Broeker
and ousts Broeker, who disappears while his wife is turned into a
compliant vegetable, leaving DM in charge.

I don’t know when it was but I clearly remember a particular moment when I
sat down at my computer keyboard. I am one of those writers who needs
either the opening words of the article or a working title in order to
really start. I had a working title, not for an article, but a book, and I
typed it out. Then I leaned back in my chair, took a deep breath and read
it. It said, “Who Killed L. Ron Hubbard?”

I leaned back and my eyes roamed over each word and letter. I took in the
question and then the words and letters and back to the question. I even
digested the tiny pixels on the screen, as if I hoped the answer would
leap from the phosphorescence but nothing changed but the black cursor
blinking at me, almost mocking my effort. Yes, I thought, it is a
pretentious question but it was the one I had to try to answer, if there
was an answer.

Then I had the exact moment for the opening words. It was on the night
that Terri Gamboa – former Executive Director of Author Services, Inc.
and now out of Scientology – called me to DM’s office where I was told
that Hubbard had died and that I would be going to his ranch.

THE WRITING STARTS

I leaned towards the keyboard and began to write. To my amazement, the
words and the scene poured out effortlessly. I wasn’t striving for
literature. I merely had to capture the scene.

As the cursor flitted across the screen, I began to remember how it
happened that night and into the days that followed. There was more that I
needed to remember but for now, this would do. Let it roll, I told myself.
Let it roll. It was as if I was regaining myself.

Perhaps six or so hours later, I finally stopped, exhausted and
sufficiently satisfied for the moment. But even then, I found it difficult
to sleep as my mind kept returning to the ranch, Broeker, DM, the RPF, the
Challenger disaster, Newberry, the ambulance taking away his body. I was
searching for pieces of a puzzle that had no comprehension.

And how could I possibly answer the question?

HOOKED ON HUBBARD

What ensued over the next few years was more of a personal journey than a
professional quest, meaning – as I came to learn very recently – because
it was as much a search for closure on part of my life as it was a search
for the story. But then, that is so often the case with writers, as anyone
who has studied literature knows.

As I pursued it/him/me, it took me around the country and into subjects
that I never expected, such as meeting with police who were involved in
the investigation of the odd suicide of Flo Barnett, David Miscavige’s
mother-in law. She was found with several shots to the chest with the coup
de grace to the temple, all from a rifle. (At one point, the cult grilled
me in a deposition about her death, asking if I had any evidence of any
foul play. No, I said, which made them happy. They failed to ask me if
anyone else has any evidence. Scientology: Knowing how to know. Yup.)

I even came across people who claimed to know about Miscavige’s
in-the-cult-sex life, via accounts from his wife Shelly. (Scientology
confessional methods have an interesting rippling effect.) If true, I felt
sorry for her.

THE WRITING STALLS

But when I tried to continue my writing, it stalled and I struggled. At
one point I became so disillusioned that I killed the idea for nearly a
year as a ridiculous obsession but then like a weed taking root, it
sprouted again but only to wither and die in my inspirational drought. Was
it the subject or was it me? Had my disregard of the Muse prompted a like
response?

I had not written anything truly worthwhile since 1991, when my article
for San Diego Magazine won two journalism awards, from the Society of
Professional Journalist and the San Diego Press Club. The article was
about the dangers in the flight pattern of the San Diego airport, from the
perspective of the pilots who flew it.

When we fled the cult in 1989, we settled in Ocean Beach, on the Point
Loma Peninsula because of the nearby Dog Beach where a hundred canines
would romp on any given summer day. The downside was that Ocean Beach was
in the westerly flight path of Lindbergh Field and the roar of the jets
above us garnered enough attention to prompt my learning that the flight
path was the target of a citizens group. They in turn introduced me to
pilots who were concerned about the safety of the eastern approach and my
journalistic tendencies took over and the magazine accepted my query.

The article was woven around a hypothetical flight approaching Lindbergh
Field that I had constructed from interviews with a dozen experienced
commercial pilots, moving the reader from cockpit to the airport back to
cockpit to FAA regulations and back to cockpit and then to buildings that
loomed in the pilot’s eyes as he seemingly navigated them like the cars a
few hundred feet below. The pilot’s called it a “white knuckle landing.”

Braiding these elemtns was a thrill and a challenge and the article drew
more letters of praise than anything the magazine had published in years,
the editor told me, prompting them to publish letters for the next three
months. They received only one critical letter, from a Coast Guard pilot
who liked the approach. I guess he loved the thrill.

WRITING FOR THE REAL WORLD

When my name was announced as the best news magazine article at the awards
banquet for the San Diego Press Club, I was stunned for two reasons. Yes,
winning was a thrill. But there was a more important reason: I had
succeeded as a writer. I hadn’t written it according to “policy” or to
fulfill some program step or as an amends project or to attack some
imagined enemy. My editor didn’t require that I include certain buttons and
attack phrases and the article didn’t need i/a or issue authority to be
certain that it forwarded the most current Party Line. It was MY article
and I had chosen the style and techniques and my professional peers
applauded as I walked to the podium to accept the plaque.

THIS was what writing was about, I realized: the freedom to write without
propaganda or Party Line, without a Big Brother looking over my
shoulder, as if I am the old Soviet Union.

Suddenly there was a separation between what I had been doing for 20 years
in the cult and what writing truly was about. All one has to do is pick up
any Scientology publication, especially their rag called Freedom and watch
the propaganda drip off the page like the rotting garbage it is. What
astounded me was how I had come to believe that this was writing, not
unlike how writers for Pravda probably felt during the Communist regime.
But writing for Pravda or Freedom is to writing what prostitutes are to
love and for the same reason.

RETURNING TO THE MUSE

And so I began to long to return to my greatest and dearest love and I
realized that just as the cult had drained my creativity by demanding
propaganda instead of art, so had my post-cult days. A piece that I wrote
for Quill magazine about how Scientology manipulates the media
(http://www.scientology.no.net/archive/media/young-quill.html) was
informative but it was hardly satisfying to me as a writer. Another that I
wrote for Der Spiegel magazine about the top secret Snow White program
(http://cisar.org/g50925ae.htm) was as satisfying as eating cardboard
because it appeared in German. How can a writer see and judge the final
piece if he/she cant even read it? At least it hd some photos.

I began to ask myself, what am I doing? In the cult they wanted propaganda
pieces attacking imagined enemies that made the cult executives feel good
when they read them. (That is always the most important audience for such
propaganda. It makes the members feel as if this is reality and truth when
it is nothing but one’s own sock puppet show.) And outside of the cult, I
was writing stories and giving sound bites about Scientology, whether it
be for a newspaper, magazine or TV show. Where was I as a writer, other
than as an email address? So I turned more to cats than cults. At least
they purred.

HOW IT WENT OFF THE RAILS

With some help, I began to see what had happened to me. During my nearly
21 years in the cult, I had sold my creative soul as certainly as if I had
worked for a money-grubbing ad agency, and in that regard, the two aren’t
any different. My proudest achievement – the San Diego story – came after
the cult and before I started consulting on Scientology cases and writing
about the cult. As a writer, I had moved from one cult to another. It was
no wonder that I had spun my wheels for years on that book. I realized
that if I am to regain that joy of writing so the Muse can inspire me to
the completion of any effort, it had to recapture what I was free to do a
few years earlier. But to do that, to entice the Muse to return, I have to
step away from this arena for as long as it takes, whether it be a month
or a year. The Muse works not by deadlines.

How did I come to all of this? At a little retreat called Wellspring in
southern Ohio, where I was able to relax and write and walk with Mac and
talk with friends about any subject I pleased. I could arise in the middle
of the night, as I often did, to pound out something on my laptop until I
wanted to crash until my next inspiration, whatever the hour. Meanwhile,
the kitchen downstairs was stocked for any meal or snack, or prepared for
me if I wanted to devote my time to my own recovery rather than making
dinner. Or I could walk the rolling hills with Mac and a few others of his
species and enjoy the fading purple Ironwood flowers, indicating the end
of summer. Or if the silence was too much, I could watch TV or go into
nearby Athens (a college town, for Ohio University) and enjoy a coffee
house, movie or a good used bookstore, the kind found only in college
towns.

CULTS VS. CREATIVITY

Yes, I realized, this is definitely the type of place that Scientology
would hate for it allows freedom and creativity. They would have to hate
it and pump the propaganda just as Pravda attacked the institutions west
of the Berlin Wall that represented the antithesis of the official Kremlin
Party Line. Any true freedom challenges boundaries, especially those that
pretend to be otherwise, as Communism pretended to be the bastion of true
peace and freedom. One can even find and measure totalitarian systems by
their knee-jerk party lines and Scientology is among the best. I know
because I did it for so very long from inside, and then became their
target from this other side.

Wellspring was important because they know what it is like to try to be
free in an abusive environment, whether it be a marriage or a cult or a
job. (They work with a lot of abused women.) Abuse is abuse. Terror is
terror. It differs by degrees and it rips away individuality and
creativity and future for the individual.

But at Wellspring, I was free to write and to peel away the barriers to my
own creativity that included not only the cult but post-cult and pre-cult
experiences, even back to the days when I wrote for school papers or for
the anti-war movement in San Francisco or a political campaign, of which
there were several for me in the 1960s. It was no wonder I was so
qualified to produce propaganda for an abusive cult. I had been writing
propaganda for years!

This is what my two weeks at Wellspring gave me, amongst other insights.
(Results will vary, as label disclaimers remind us.)(laugh) But it was
what I needed to regain a personal integrity that any abusive system,
especially a cult, despises.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

So that is what I was doing, am doing and going to do and it will require
concentration and reflection and time which is why I’ve not been on ARS
and won’t be, for as long as I must.

My apologies to many friends who have left messages or sent me mail and
gotten no reply. It’s difficult to explain why one is so involved with an
idea or a project or any creative effort, so that virtually nothing else
exists. I usually don’t even like to talk about it or discuss it. Stacy is
an exception because she has followed this journey since it started. It
was when she told me how many were reaching her to ask about me that I
realized it would be rude to continue to say nothing, given the role I
have played in this endeavor. (I even shared this post with her before
sending it.)

So don’t take it personal if you get no reply. Consider it just the
eccentricity that some writers get into when they latch onto an idea and
lock themselves away or take long walks or won’t talk to anyone and get up
at all hours of the night (it is 4:30 a.m. as I type this), chewing on an
idea, a style, a voice, a scene, a thread and then throwing it all away
and starting again or merely prowling for more information or even
traveling with a friend or a dog to take a break.

My intention is merely to restore and rebuild the creative self I touched
earlier and then decide on my direction. It is not a matter of disdain for
hack writing. That is snobbery. There is a place and time for classic hack
writing just as there is a place for great B movies. Few of us can live on
pure diets of Shakespeare, Mozart and Kant.

KEYBOARDS AND FREEDOM

What does this have to do with the original idea that I was writing about?
The best answer I can give is, we’ll see. Besides, there is more to write
about, including fiction. Or I might find another airport.

Besides, with HTML and the Net, writing (not to mention publication) has
changed. One no longer needs a footnote or an appendix with documents when
HTML can link to a document, a map, a photograph or even a video. A writer
who knows HTML – which I have had the good fortune to learn – has greater
opportunities and options and freedoms.

It used to be said that freedom of the press belonged to those who owned
one. Well, with the Internet, that freedom can now belong to anyone with a
keyboard and THAT is what dries the mouth, puckers the hole and strikes
fear in the heart of every tyrant. What Tom Paine could have done today!

So there you are, a writer’s account of himself, past, present and future.
It is long because it is easier than ever to write. Never has a keyboard
felt so clean and comfortable. I hope each of you, especially those in a
cult or out of a cult, have a chance to find YOUR true talent and purpose.
It is what the world needs.

My name is Jesse Prince. I was part of the horrid organization known as the “Sea Organization” from 1976 – 1992. I was a Senior Executive in RTC for 5 years (1982-1987). This is not something that I am proud of—to the contrary I am still recovering from the experience. I have been disassociated from any form of Scientology for the last 6 years, since I escaped in 1992, I had been afraid to come out and was feeling hopeless, but that is all behind me now.

Three weeks ago I contacted Stacy Young. In talking with her I realized I could help in the struggle to expose the truth about Scn and get them to stop hurting people and ruining lives of decent and innocent people. The following Sunday after Stacy and I met, Mike Rinder called Bob Minton to ask if I was now on his payroll. It was obvious that they knew Stacy and I had met and were ready to attack all of us—which is what they have been doing ever since. Scn attorney Rick Moxon has already put me on notice that I am to be sued if I divulge any information about their criminal activities. However, I will not be silenced by these thugs.

I feel an obligation to do something to expose the criminal and psychotic nature of the upper echelon of the Sea Org (all corporations included) in an effort to get some relief from the attacks that come to anyone who opposes this godless so called church. Since I made the decision to expose the truth about the true nature of Scn I have had my life threatened by one of their hired thugs and they try to follow me around where ever I go. To say the least, I have personal knowledge of crimes and cover-ups that have them very worried if they want me killed before I could even fully come out of hiding!

Well, I want you to know I am alive and well and I have one hell of a story to tell. The Internet will be the forum I use to tell the truth and nothing but. If you liken the Internet to a basketball game, I plan to take Scn to the hoop like Michel Jordan.

His online name was Rogue Agent2 and his scathing attacks against the Church of Scientology ripped through the Internet. Shielded behind an anonymous account at Northeastern University, he continued to anger and embarrass the church with messages that millions could read online.

“There was no Christ!” Rogue Agent said in an Internet message, quoting Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. “Christianity succeeded in making people into victims. We can succeed by making victims into people,” Rogue Agent wrote in another message, again quoting Hubbard’s words.

Other Internet critics of Scientology had their homes in Virginia, Colorado and California searched and their computer disks seized by the church’s lawyers – including prominent Boston attorney Earle C. Cooley. The lawyers sought to stop what a judge ruled was copyright infringement.

“This is mortal combat between two alien cultures a flame war with real guns. A fight that has burst the banks of the Net and into the real world of police, lawyers, and armed search and seizure,” Wired magazine said in a 1995 article about the conflict between Scientology and its Internet critics. It “is the bitterest battle fought across the Internet to date,” Wired said.

In Boston, local Scientologists started investigating Rogue Agent, trying to learn his real name and silence him, the church’s critics said.

“He is really spooked about all the cult agents trying to find him,” said Jim Byrd, another local Internet critic.

“He is afraid for the safety of his family,” Byrd said. “Besides tons of lawyers, the cult hires lots of PIs and assorted goons.” Other U.S. critics have alleged Scientology hired private investigators to search their garbage, illicitly obtain their telephone records and credit reports, and engage in “noisy investigations” designed to smear them.

And overseas, Scientologists got search warrants in Finland and Holland to silence critics.

“Copyrights were getting ripped off right and left, and that’s all this really is,” said Church of Scientology International President Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch. “We’ve been elected the Texas Rangers of this new frontier,” Jentzsch said.

But Ron Newman of Somerville, one of the country’s best-known anti-Scientology Net critics, said the church’s main target is freedom of speech.

“I think it’s important to stand up against a private organization that tries to harass and sue people into submission,” Newman said.

Net notes

Here are descriptions of some of the documents – many of them posted on Web sites or the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology – that have gotten Scientology’s Internet critics in trouble with the church:

The cost of Scientology training. A December 1994 Internet document said it costs $376,000 to complete church training.

Hubbard’s motivation for creating Scientology. Many online documents contain statements from Hubbard’s friends, who remember him saying, “I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is.”

First-person stories by ex-Scientologists, who say they were manipulated, abused or held captive when they tried to leave the church.

Objective biographies of Hubbard. Online documents – including a document by his son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr. – say Hubbard experimented with black magic, drugs and sexual Satanic rituals in the 1940s in Southern California. Other Web sites have copies of school and Navy records detailing failures that contradict Hubbard’s glowing official biographies.

The Xenu incident. Scientology teaches all human misery can be traced to “Body Thetans” created 75 million years ago by the evil Galactic Federation ruler, Xenu. Only “auditing” – akin to exorcism – can rid the body of these disturbing, invisible creatures.

Harassment of journalists. Online stories describe how book authors, and reporters for the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and other publications were investigated, threatened and framed for crimes to deter them from writing stories critical of Scientology.

Hubbard’s view of Christianity and Judaism. A critic’s Web site has a sound file – an actual recording of Hubbard’s voice – describing how evil extraterrestrials hypnotized humans into a belief in Jesus Christ.

Upper-level Scientology teachings that tell trainees to give and receive communication with plants and zoo animals.

The raids

Like most of the local critics, Ron Newman knew little about Scientology until he was angered by the punitive actions of Scientologists.

“A lot of people see it as Scientology’s Vietnam. It’s a morass,” said Sam Gorton, another local Internet critic of the church. “It’s ridiculously difficult to suppress information on the Net.”

Every time Scientology raids one critic, dozens of others post the same material online, Gorton said.

But Cooley, a Boston lawyer who is chairman of the Boston University Board of Trustees, said Scientology only takes legal action as a last resort.

And its legal battle is bringing great benefit to society, by helping preserve the rights of authors and others whose work could be illicitly published online, he said.

Scientology eventually won court decisions preserving its right to prevent others from freely publishing church teachings on the Internet. “I think that the church litigation is on the cutting edge of a major issue confronting America,” Cooley said. While the Internet is a great innovation, he said, “like all wonderful things it has the potential for abuse.”

Rogue Agent

The Herald met with a group of local Internet critics – including Bob Minton, a retired banker from Boston who has donated $ 1.25 million to Scientology critics – at the Liberty Cafe, a cybercafe near MIT. The critics – who describe themselves as computer nerds – believe Scientology’s home searches and suppression of negative information are part of the church’s openly admitted plans to convert the entire planet.

The church’s harassment of Rogue Agent proves Scientology’s legal blitzes are not just meant to preserve its copyrights, said Dennis Erlich, a church defector who once oversaw high-level instruction at the church’s elite Flag Service Organization in Clearwater, Fla.

Rogue Agent was a threat because he was a tough Internet fighter, Erlich said.

“Scientology is basically a kind of mental ju jitsu, and Rogue just used that back on them,” Erlich said in a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles.

“He was a very effective critic,” the defector said. “I taught him. I worked with him until he got the mindset.”

The Boston Church of Scientology tracked Rogue Agent to Northeastern’s computer science department, and the church’s legal officer, Annette Ross, sent a Dec. 1, 1995, letter of complaint to the university.

“That was enough to force the university to cave in and say he can’t be anonymous,” Erlich said. Rogue Agent, fearing harassment if he revealed his name, lost his Northeastern account a week later.

“Others are getting involved and drawn in, I don’t want them hurt,” Rogue Agent said in a farewell Internet message to the newsgroup.

Cooley said Scientology investigated Rogue Agent because he was posting “hate messages” on the Internet. Cooley was not able to provide any examples of the hate messages.

“In his case, it’s a question of trying to find out why an important university in Boston has somebody who’s posting hate material,” Cooley said. “Is he authorized to be spreading hate on the Internet using the facilities of Northeastern University?”

Meanwhile the church unveiled a new30,000-screen World Wide Web site, aimed mainly at attracting new members and selling its costly programs. And Scientology recruiters troll the Internet’s newsgroups and chat rooms.

Cooley defended the efforts of church members who are glutting the critics’ newsgroup, with thousands of pro-Scientology documents.